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Now, in the first place, if the Soul has not actually come
down but has illuminated the darkness, how can it truly be said
to have declined? The outflow from it of something in the nature
of light does not justify the assertion of its decline; for that,
it must make an actual movement towards the object lying in the
lower realm and illuminate it by contact.
If, on the other hand, the Soul keeps to its own place and
illuminates the lower without directing any act towards that end,
why should it alone be the illuminant? Why should not the Kosmos
draw light also from the yet greater powers contained in the
total of existence?
Again, if the Soul possesses the plan of a Universe, and by
virtue of this plan illuminates it, why do not that illumination
and the creating of the world take place simultaneously? Why must
the Soul wait till the representations of the plan be made
actual?
Then again this Plan- the "Far Country" of their terminology-
brought into being, as they hold, by the greater powers, could
not have been the occasion of decline to the creators.
Further, how explain that under this illumination the Matter of
the Kosmos produces images of the order of Soul instead of mere
bodily-nature? An image of Soul could not demand darkness or
Matter, but wherever formed it would exhibit the character of the
producing element and remain in close union with it.
Next, is this image a real-being, or, as they say, an
Intellection?
If it is a reality, in what way does it differ from its original?
By being a distinct form of the Soul? But then, since the
original is the reasoning Soul, this secondary form must be the
vegetative and generative Soul; and then, what becomes of the
theory that it is produced for glory's sake, what becomes of the
creation in arrogance and self-assertion? The theory puts an end
also to creation by representation and, still more decidedly, to
any thinking in the act; and what need is left for a creator
creating by way of Matter and Image?
If it is an Intellection, then we ask first "What justifies the
name?" and next, "How does anything come into being unless the
Soul give this Intellection creative power and how, after all,
can creative power reside in a created thing?" Are we to be told
that it is a question of a first Image followed by a second?
But this is quite arbitrary.
And why is fire the first creation?
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